Research

Research Groups > Programming Languages

William Clinger
William
Clinger		 Matthias Felleisen
Matthias
Felleisen		 Viera K. Proulx
Viera K.
Proulx		 Olin Shivers
Olin
Shivers		 Mitchell Wand
Mitchell
Wand		 Amal Ahmed
Amal
Ahmed

Programming languages shape the way programmers think about problems. Northeastern's distinguished programming languages group is dedicated to making sure that programmers have the robust languages they need to produce more reliable, manageable, secure, and efficient programs. The group has led some of the most important advances in the design, implementation, and analysis of programming languages.

The group's primary research interests include modeling programming languages to predict how programs will function, creating efficient and reliable macros, and developing techniques that allow programmers to adapt programming languages to the needs of specific programs.

The programming languages group is also interested in pedagogy and has special expertise in Scheme and its implementations. It remains active in language development and standardization efforts, and in pedagogic projects, including TeachScheme.

Team Achievements

  • Created the PLT Scheme programming environment;
  • Developed Larceny, a high-performance Scheme implementation for scientific applications;
  • Participated in the invention of Hygiene, a technique for ensuring that macros don't interfere with one another;
  • Developed Scsh, the Scheme Shell, a widely used systems programming and scripting environment that runs on any generic Unix platform;
  • Authored the "comint" family of interactive process-management modules for the emacs text editor.

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